Hamilton County Commissioner Greg Hartmann wants Mayor
Mark Mallory to live up to past promises of county-city collaboration.
In a letter to Mallory, Hartmann criticized the mayor for failing to
stick to his pledge of supporting the City-County Shared Services
Committee. The committee seeks to streamline county and city services to
end redundancies and make the services more competitive and efficient.

Cincinnati Economic Development’s director asked City
Council to create a “mega incentive” for “huge impact” development. He
also asked City Council to pledge $4 million of casino revenue a year to
a local neighborhood project. If City Council agrees, casino revenue
will be used to boost local businesses.

The day before Pennsylvania’s voter ID law faced trouble
in court, Secretary of Jon Husted suggested a “more strict” voter ID law
for Ohio. Husted said the current ID system needs to be streamlined and
simplified. Democrats criticized the suggestion for its potential voter
suppression.

Sept. 22 will be the “Global Frackdown,” a day where
activists will protest around the world in a push to ban hydraulic
fracturing — or fracking. Cincinnati will have its own “Frackdown” at
Piatt Park. Activists are generally against fracking because it poses
too many risks, which CityBeat covered here. But Gov. John Kasich
and other supporters of fracking insist it can be made safe with proper
regulations. Some have also suggested that natural gas, which is now
plentiful due to the spread of fracking, can be used as part of a bigger
plan to stop global warming.

A new survey says Cincinnati companies will continue hiring through the fourth quarter.

The full footage for Mitt Romney’s controversial comments
at a May 17 fundraiser has become available here. The footage shows why
Romney prefers to be dishonest most of the time. More importantly,
Romney’s comments about Obama voters are not accurate. The Onion, a satirical newspaper, has an explanation for why Romney insists on unleashing gaffe after gaffe.

President Barack Obama announced trade action against
China while in Cincinnati yesterday. Obama said his team had filed a
lawsuit at the World Trade Organization on the claim China is
cheating in auto trade by offering “extensive subsidies” to its
automakers and auto-part producers. China fired back with its own
lawsuit for U.S. tariffs that raise the price on a variety of Chinese
products — from steels to tires. Anti-China rhetoric has fast become the
latest flavor of the month for the Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns, and
China is not happy with it.

But the presidential race raced back to gaffes over trade policy when Mother Jones
posted amazingly candid footage of Romney speaking to millionaires at a
fundraiser. In the videos, Romney straightforwardly outlines campaign
strategy. In one video, Romney said he doesn’t care about getting the
vote of the 47 percent of Americans that don’t pay taxes because he
doesn’t believe he can convince them to “take personal responsibility
and care for their lives.” The Obama team retaliated in a statement:
“It's shocking that a candidate for president of the United States would
go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that
half the American people view themselves as ‘victims,’ entitled to
handouts, and are unwilling to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their
lives. It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve
disdainfully written off half the nation.”

Ohioans love their local schools, a new survey shows. The
survey also found Ohioans trust their local school boards of education
with education-related decisions, but they really don’t trust the state
superintendent, governor or legislature.

Hamilton County courts want to go paperless. The move would save money and space and make the system more efficient.

County budget meetings are still chugging along. Different
department directors are still pleading for no cuts, but the
commissioners insist cuts have to be made somewhere.

Cincinnati police announced a new Taser policy. The new policy
disallows the use of frontal shots except in situations involving
self-defense and the defense of others, reinforces the fact officers
need to make sure such force is necessary and points out people have
been injured due to Taser use. The new policy was brought about due to
findings Taser use can kill in rare situations.

The streetcar’s yearlong delay got an explanation
yesterday. A few issues are to blame, including the city’s ongoing
conflict with Duke Energy over who has to pay for moving utility lines
to accommodate for the streetcar.

The amount of people on Ohio’s death row is shrinking.
After Donald Palmer’s execution, Ohio will drop to its lowest death row
population since July 1995.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted launched a mailing
campaign to clean up voter rolls. Using data from U.S. Postal Service
National Change of Address Registry, Husted mailed 70,000 former Ohioans
encouraging them to cancel their voter registration. The action is a
lot tamer than Republican-led efforts to purge voter rolls in other
states, which states like Florida, Iowa and Colorado have backed out of —
at least for now.

Local Republicans criticize president's record on deficit in counter-rally

President Barack Obama announced a new trade action
against China during a Cincinnati campaign stop on Monday, where he also
took the opportunity to attack Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

The U.S. filed the case at the World Trade Organization on
Monday and claims that China offers “extensive subsidies” to native
automakers and auto-parts producers.

The Chinese government filed its own complaint before the
WTO on Monday, challenging tariffs the U.S. imposes on Chinese products
ranging from steel to tires. The tariffs are meant to protect American
manufacturers against what the U.S. government claims are unfair trade
practices by China.

“(The U.S. action is) against illegal subsidies that
encourage companies to ship auto part manufacturing jobs overseas,”
Obama said before an estimated crowd of 4,500 at the Seasongood Pavilion
in Eden Park. “These are subsidies that directly harm working men and
women on the assembly lines in Ohio and Michigan and across the
Midwest.”

“It’s not right, it’s against the rules, and we will not let it stand. American
workers build better products than anyone. ‘Made in America’ means
something. And when the playing field is level, America will always
win.”

Obama went on to criticize his Republican challenger,
saying Romney made his fortune in part by uprooting American jobs and
shipping them to China. Obama accused Romney — who has criticized
Obama’s foreign policy, saying the president apologizes for American
interests — of talking the talk without being able to walk the walk.

The Romney campaign countered with an email after the
rally, saying that Obama’s economic policies were hurting the private
sector and harmed manufacturing.

“As president, Mitt Romney will deliver a fresh start for
manufacturers by promoting trade that works for America and fiscal
policies that encourage investment, hiring and growth.”

The email pointed to reports from Bloomberg finding that manufacturing and production have shrunk recently.

Before the Obama rally several Ohio Republicans held a
news conference behind a Romney campaign bus near Eden Park, where they
focused more on the deficit than foreign trade.

U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot said it was “laughable” that
Obama considers himself a budget hawk. He pointed to the decline in
budget negotiations between the president and the Republican-controlled
House of Representatives, saying Obama “walked away” from talks with
Speaker John Boehner.

“Basically as president from that time last August until now, it’s been all politics,” Chabot said.

Chabot also attacked Obama on foreign policy, claiming the
president has left Israel hanging in the Middle East and is not serious
with Iran, who he says is on the brink of getting nuclear weapons.

The president in his speech said he did have a plan to
reduce the federal deficit, and would reduce it by $4 trillion over the
next 10 years without raising taxes on the middle class.

Monday’s visit to Cincinnati was Obama’s second of this
campaign and his 12th trip to Ohio this year. Romney has visited the
state 18 times during his campaign.

Obama was scheduled to fly to Columbus Monday afternoon for a campaign appearance there.

Ohio Rep. Connie Pillich of Cincinnati criticized the
University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees for former UC President Greg
Williams’ severance package. She told The Enquirer, “It’s
really disappointing that the trustees would make such a decision while
so many students and families are struggling with rising tuition costs.
As the trustees vote to needlessly spend over a million dollars, the
University is trying to decide how to fund $10 million for the
Cintrifuse project and students are taking out more loans to pay a
tuition that was increased by 3.5 percent this year.” Williams got a
package totaling $1.3 million after abruptly leaving the university,
citing personal reasons. Despite the allegedly rocky past between the
Board and Williams, the Board of Trustees insists it did not force him
out.

Eligible residents could save $163 a year with natural gas thanks to a new aggregation program in Cincinnati.
The city announced Friday it's working on the new plan with Duke
Energy, and customers should get details about the deal soon. The city
says the deal will reach about 64,000 residents and small businesses.

In case you missed it, the streetcar has been delayed to 2015. The city is now looking
for consultants to help manage the project with CAF USA, the city’s
preferred car manufacturer. The first phase of the streetcar will span
the Banks and Findlay Market. The city is also trying to study a
connection to the University of Cincinnati, Uptown’s hospitals and the
Cincinnati Zoo.

There is a lot of criticism being hurled at public charter
schools. While some charter schools are successful, some have serious
financial and educational problems. Critics say the schools need tougher
standards.

Romney is facing criticism for saying middle income is
$200,000 to $250,000 and less. However, Obama made a similar distinction
in the past when he said income up to $250,000 is middle class. The
reason for this strange distinction from both sides — most Americans
would find $250,000 to be beyond middle class — is to protect small
businesses. Typically, politicians try to bundle up small businesses
with middle class protections, and taxing income between $200,000 and
$250,000 as if it’s not middle class could potentially hurt small
businesses.

Ohio’s median income dropped last year, according to a new
report from the U.S. Census Bureau. But rates of poverty and uninsured
rates remained the same. Nationwide, uninsured rates dropped from 16.3
percent in 2010 to 15.7 percent in 2011, meaning 1.4 million people
gained health coverage. Some of that is attributable to health-care reform passed by President Barack Obama.

Former University of Cincinnati President Greg Williams is
getting a pretty nice going-away present. The Board of Trustees approved
a package for Williams that adds up to more than $1.2 million. It
includes a bonus, retirement benefits, consulting fees, a year’s salary
and a contract buyout. Williams abruptly left UC on Aug. 21, citing
personal reasons.

With the support of Democrats and Republicans, the Ohio
legislature approved pension reforms yesterday. The reforms lower benefits, raise
contributions requirements, increase the retirement eligibility age, establish new cost-of-living guidelines and set a new
formula to calculate benefits, all for future retirees. For the most part, current retirees are
not affected. Senate President Tom Niehaus, a Republican, said, “We know
the changes are not popular, but they are necessary.” Before the
changes, the system was losing $1 million a day, according to a
statement from Rep. Robert Hagan, a Democrat.

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio is pushing against banks that
take advantage of college students. In a letter to Higher One, Brown
told the bank to rework its contracts with universities. Brown wrote in
the letter, “Federal student aid programs should help students prepare
for the future, not extract fee income from them.” He went on to ask the
bank to redo its contracts so they are “consumer-friendly and
consistent with reforms that Congress enacted for the credit card
market.”

Vice President Joe Biden was in Dayton yesterday. During his speech, he spoke about the attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya, which led to the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. Biden vowed justice will be served.

Vows to bring to justice killers of U.S. Ambassador to Libya

DAYTON – Vice President Joe Biden took time at the beginning of his
Wednesday campaign stop in Dayton to condemn an overnight attack that killed the
U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, while praising the work and
courage of American diplomats and promising to bring to justice those who
carried out the attack.

“(This) brave — and it’s not hyperbole to say brave –— ambassador
was in Benghazi while the war was going on. Our ambassador risked his life
repeatedly while the war in Libya to get rid of that dictator was going on,”
Biden said.

“These men are as brave and as courageous as any of our warriors.”

The Tuesday attack took place during a protest against an amateur
short film made in the United States that protesters say insulted the Prophet
Muhammad. U.S Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three of his staff members
were killed.

“Let me be clear — we are resolved to bring to justice their
killers,” Biden said.

The vice president made no mention of Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney’s criticism of the Obama administration’s response from
the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, which he characterized as “akin to an apology” and a
“severe miscalculation,” but the vice president quickly segued into politics, alluding
to Romney’s relative lack of experience in foreign policy.

“The task of a president is not only to defend our interests and
causes and the cause of freedom abroad, it is also to build a nation here at
home, to which the entire world can look and aspire to be like,” Biden said. “Whether
we do that and how we do that, that is literally the essence of the choice we
face in this presidential election. It really is that basic, and foreign policy
is not some sideline to all of this.”

The Romney campaign in Ohio was quick to respond, calling Biden’s
remarks “hypocritical” in an emailed statement.

“Vice President Biden’s appearance in Dayton only served further
damage to his credibility as he reprised hypocritical and widely debunked
attacks against Mitt Romney. Not only did the Vice President mislead Ohioans,
but he attacked Mitt Romney for supporting the same tax policy the Obama
Administration supported just last year,” Romney Ohio spokesman Christopher
Maloney wrote.

“With today’s Census report showing nearly 1 in 6 Americans
living in poverty and incomes continuing to decline, it appears that misleading
attacks are all the Obama campaign has left to offer 400,000 Ohioans looking
for work.”

Maloney’s email also fact-checked a claim made by Biden during
his speech. Biden said that he opposed the so-called “territorial tax,” which
he said would allow American companies that invested abroad to avoid paying
taxes in the United States.

The email included links to an Associated Press fact checking
article that concludes that Romney’s proposal was aimed at encouraging
investment in the U.S. rather than overseas.

Biden spoke to a packed house at Wright State University in
Dayton, with overflow crowds estimated in the hundreds viewing in separate
rooms in the Student Union.

The vice president reiterated many of his usual stump speech
points — the Romney tax plan’s negative effects on the middle class, the
benefits of the Affordable Care Act and the Obama administration’s commitment to
manufacturing — but much of Biden’s speech focused on education. He said a president
Romney would cut funding for Pell Grants, meaning many students in the audience
would have to leave school. He also lauded President Barack Obama’s
administration’s enactment of a tax break of $2,500 for every family that sends
a child to college.

The usually bombastic Biden wasn’t without his gaffes. Twice he
referred to Wright State as “Wayne State,” which is in Detroit, despite a large
Wright State University banner displayed in the conference room where he gave
his speech.

The crowd was quick to correct him after the second time he misspoke.

“Wright State, which also includes Wayne State,” Biden said after
he was corrected, eliciting laughs from the audience.

Hired organizations did not properly comply with federal stimulus requirements

Ohio’s inspector general released a report today
criticizing the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) for
improperly reimbursing federal stimulus funds to hired organizations
that did not follow rules.

The report released by Meyer’s office today, which focused
on stimulus programs in central Ohio, outlined a few instances of ODJFS
failing to oversee proper standards. In total, the department, which was
put in charge of carrying out job training funds in Ohio from the
stimulus package President Barack Obama signed into law in 2009, wrongly
reimbursed companies it hired for $51,700.81.

In central Ohio, ODJFS hired two organizations to carry
out the job training program, or Workforce Investment Act: Associated
Builders and Contractors, Inc. (ABC) and Construction Trades Networks
(CTN). At ABC, the inspector general found limited problems with faulty
reimbursements involving a newspaper subscription, travel and mileage
totaling less than $100. The money was not accounted for as a
questionable cost since it was so small.

However, at CTN, the faulty reimbursements piled up. The
organization was reimbursed $560.61 for phone calls made prior to
being hired as part of the federal grant. It was also reimbursed
$1,613.62 for its invoices, even though documentation was not
provided to link phone calls as necessary to the grant program.

Under the federal stimulus rules, CTN was required to
provide 25 percent of its own funds for the program. CTN planned on
using $91,800 of in-kind funds — payment that isn’t cash — by paying for
trainee wages. The organization paid $60,927.70 by the end of the grant
period, and the organization was reimbursed for $49,526.64 by ODJFS, even though
the charges were supposed to be carried by CTN. The inspector general requested CTN give the money back to ODJFS.

When the inspector general contacted the organization to
explain the findings, CTN attributed the requests for faulty
reimbursements to confusion caused by multiple administrative changes at
ODJFS.

“In addition, monitoring visits by ODJFS were not
conducted until after the grant period expired, even though the
partnerships were told the visits would occur as grant activities were
underway,” the report said.

Meyer’s office concluded ODJFS should review the
questioned costs, work to keep consistent guidelines through
administrative changes and monitor grant funds during the
grant period.

A report was released for northwestern Ohio was released
on May 10, and it also found wrongdoing. It can be found here. A report
for stimulus programs in southwestern Ohio will be released later.

ODJFS could not be immediately provide comment on the report. This story will be updated if comments become available.

UPDATE (3:28 P.M.):Benjamin Johnson, spokesperson for ODJFS, provided a comment shortly after this story was published.

“As the report mentions, these were expenditures by local entities, not by the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services,” he says. “We appreciate the inspector general bringing this to our attention, and we'll work to resolve the matter.”

Secretary of State Jon Husted has been sued again. This
time he’s being sued by the Democratic Montgomery County election
officials he fired. The officials tried to expand in-person early voting
hours in Montgomery County to include weekend voting, but the move
violated Husted’s call for uniform hours across the state.

The Ohio EPA will host a workshop in Cincinnati on
Sept. 25. The workshop will focus on the Ohio Clean Fund and other tools
and incentives to help individuals and groups embrace clean energy.

A study found wind power could meet the world’s energy
needs. Wind currently supplies 4.1 percent of the United States’ energy
needs. Obama greatly boosted the production of wind
energy with tax credits. Romney vowed to
repeal the tax credits in a brief moment of substance.

Vice President Joe Biden was in town over the weekend.
During the stop, he outlined “fundamental differences” between President
Barack Obama’s campaign and Mitt Romney’s campaign. Specifically, he
criticized the Romney-Ryan plan of turning Medicare into a voucher system.
The visit also unveiled a new fake, pointless controversy in the media
when a female biker almost sat on Biden’s lap.

Secretary of State Jon Husted backed down on telling
county boards of elections to not begin implementing in-person early
voting for the weekend and Monday before Election Day. On Aug. 31, a
federal judge ruled Husted must enact in-person early voting for the
extra days. Following the case, Husted sent out Directive 2012-40
ordering county boards of elections to not enact in-person early voting
rules until the court case granting extra hours was appealed and
re-ruled on. The judge responded to the directive by asking Husted to
explain himself in court. But Husted backed down by sending out
Directive 2012-42, which rescinds Directive 2012-40. Republicans have
consistently attempted to block more voting hours in the past few
months, citing racial politics and costs.

A CityBeat analysis found cuts in the public sector are partly to blame for the unemployment rate.

The identity of the man behind a super PAC supporting
senatorial candidate Josh Mandel, lying extraordinaire, has been revealed. The group is Government Integrity Fund, and it is headed by
Columbus lobbyist Tom Norris. The group also employs former Mandel aide
Joe Ritter.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreclosure
sale notices cannot be distributed via websites. The court said
institutions have to notify customers more directly.

The Enquirer shined some light into its paywall
model in an editorial by CEO Margaret Buchanan yesterday. In the
editorial, Buchanan acknowledges the newspaper’s duty to “watchdog
journalism” to keep organizations and people in check.

A pizza owner in Florida really loves Obama. Florida is
considered a major swing state in the presidential election. However,
the race may not be as close as the media’s fairness machine seeks to
make it seem. Recent aggregate polling at FiveThirtyEight and
RealClearPolitics is moving heavily in Obama’s direction in swing states
and the national level. That could be attributed to volatility caused
by political conventions, but the trend favoring Obama has been
consistent for some time now.

Facing budget constraints, cities and states cut budgets and jobs

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics today released a disappointing job report. Unemployment fell to 8.1 percent in August, and 96,000 jobs
were added nationwide. But economists were expecting about 150,000 jobs,
and the unemployment rate fell largely due to people giving up on the
job hunt, which means they are no longer counted in the labor pool.

One of the reasons for disappointment is the drop in
public jobs. People are quick to look at the private sector when these
kind of numbers come up, but the public sector employs people, too. And
the public sector lost 10,000 jobs at state and local levels, according
to today’s jobs report.

That follows the trend of the past few years. The public
sector has been doing poorly since the Great Recession started,
according to this chart from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

The chart shows state and local payrolls since the
beginning of the recession. It proves quite clearly that governments have
been making cuts to public jobs.

Ohio has not avoided government job cuts. The Ohio
Department of Job and Family Services reported July’s unemployment rate
at 7.2 percent, which was unchanged from June’s unemployment rate. The
biggest loss in jobs for the month came from government, which lost
5,300 jobs statewide. In comparison to July 2011, July 2012 had 4,400 fewer government jobs.

Instinctively, it makes some sense. As the recession kicks
in and families and businesses are forced to budget for lower
expectations, it might seem natural to expect the government to do the
same.

However, many economists argue it should be the opposite.
They say the government should be used to balance out the private
sector. In other words, when the private sector is performing poorly —
recession — the government should step in to make up for the drop. When
the private sector is performing well — boom — the government can relax
and run budget surpluses.

Paul Krugman, a Nobel-winning economist, has advocated for this approach time and time again. In his New York Times
column and blog, Krugman has pushed for more stimulus efforts from the
federal government, and he called for a much larger stimulus package
than the $787 billion package President Barack Obama signed into law in
2009.

The data seems to support economists calling for more
action. Last month, the Brookings Institute conducted a study that found
June’s national unemployment rate would be at 7.1 percent if
governments hadn’t made cuts.

What this means is if governments truly want to fix the
economic crisis, they might want to kick the debt can down the road. But
considering many cities and states have constitutional amendments
requiring balanced budgets, that might be hard to pull off.